(upbeat music) >>Today, we're on 95 South, headed to a beautiful section of Richmond, Virginia called Church Hill.

(upbeat music) It's a vibrant section of the city located just east of downtown.

Church Hill's home to several historic sites and buildings, including St.

John's Episcopal Church, which is the place Richmond was actually built around, Chimborazo Park, the site of Chimborazo Hospital, one of the world's largest military hospitals.

Church Hill's also where Patrick Henry gave his famous speech, "Give me liberty or give me death."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) Chris Alamo is a business owner here in the area.

Tell me about your place here.

>>Alamo?

Well, we're a carryout Tex-Mex barbecue restaurant.

We've been here 12 years.

We're a real neighborhood-oriented spot.

Most people who work for me live in the neighborhood.

>>Tell me about Church Hill and what you like about Church Hill.

What's this area like?

>>If you're a history guy, then every single block has something.

Everything has a story, everything from the asphalt that was brought in from Europe to the street lights that are still running gas.

And for being in the city, it has a very strong neighborhood feel.

>>We are gonna actually head over to Jefferson Park.

I appreciate you taking the time.

We're gonna learn some hidden history over there.

So appreciate it.

>>Yeah, absolutely.

>>Thanks for the talk.

>>All right.

>>I'm here at Jefferson Park, and one of the things I love about this park is the diversity of people that come here to enjoy the sights and this beautiful view of the city.

Who would ever think that below these grounds lies a piece of hidden history?

In 1925, a C&O train tunnel collapsed.

Steam locomotive 231, 10 flat cars, and at least two men have been buried here for almost 100 years.

The Church Hill tunnel was created by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, otherwise known as the C&O Railroad.

It was built between the years 1872 and 1873, and was fully connected from one side to the other in 1881.

Upon its completion, the tunnel was the longest tunnel in US history, and it was used to bring coal to downtown Richmond.

There's so much to learn about this story.

I decided to head over to Liberty Hill Park to talk with my friend and filmmaker, Ryan Pace.

He's been working on a documentary film about the Church Hill tunnel collapse.

So Ryan, tell me about the documentary that you've been working on.

>>It really goes back to high school.

My high school history teacher was a local history buff.

And he would do a Saturday field trip where he would take students, he'd drive them around Richmond to just interesting spots, and started telling us about this train that was buried under Church Hill.

I think anybody's reaction when they hear that is it's very interesting, and it's always been interesting to me.

Local history's always been interesting to me.

There was a radio documentary back in the '60s, been one book written by Walter Griggs, who was kind of the authority on the tunnel.

But there's never been a feature length or a longer form documentary.

And I just thought that was a needed thing to preserve this super unique piece of history and the memory of all of the people that died.

>>Tell me about exactly what happened.

What happened with this collapse?

>>The tunnel was initially constructed shortly after the Civil War in the 1870s.

And it was to connect the rail yards, which are on one side of Church Hill, to Rocketts Landing, which was the shipping port.

And the problem is, there's a hill in between.

You have three options.

You can go over the hill, around the hill, or under the hill.

That's what was ultimately decided.

Geologists said, "Don't dig a tunnel under Church Hill."

Church Hill's interesting.

It has a very high water table, and it's mostly clay and mud.

It's not good to tunnel through.

The Chesapeake and Ohio was very experienced in digging tunnels out in the mountains to rock, and they assumed they could do the same here.

Well, I mean, I guess we know the end of that story.

>>So in terms of the collapse, what have you learned actually happened?

>>Well, it was interesting.

The tunnel has had a number of collapses throughout its history.

When they were initially building it in the 1870s, it collapsed several times.

And eventually in the late 1800, early 1900s, they closed the tunnel.

They said, "This is not worth it.

It's too expensive."

Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad extended the rail lines all the way to Newport News shipping docks, and Richmond was bypassed as far as a major shipping hub.

About 20 years later, Richmond was growing, and there was a need for more access, again from one side of Church Hill to the other.

And someone said, "Well, we've got this old tunnel.

Well, let's refurbish the tunnel."

One of the problems though was at that point, trains had been modernized and enlarged, and the old tunnel was a little too small.

So they went through a long process of enlarging and reinforcing.

That's what they were doing in 1925 when the tunnel collapsed.

>>Ryan tells me that approximately 200 workmen crawled under the flat cars and then escaped up the eastern end of the tunnel.

Initial reports claimed that besides Mason and Mosby, six black laborers were unaccounted for, although the missing number of men were scaled down to two, identified as day laborers, Richard Lewis and H. Smith.

Ryan also describes the rescue efforts that ensued.

>>There was a nine-day rescue effort trying to dig down through Jefferson Park to get to the locomotive.

They knew that the engineer, Tom Mason, they assumed that after nine days, it was just going to be his body at that point.

But they knew he was there.

They got there after nine days.

They were able to recover his body.

No one else was recovered.

>>Ryan has given me a great sense of what happened that terrible day.

It's time to head to the tunnel, where we'll talk to the family of Thomas Mason, the engineer of locomotive 231.

Tell me about Tom Mason.

>>My grandmother said that that was her first husband and that she loved him very much, and he worked for the railroad.

And that day, he kissed her goodbye every day heading off to work and said he would see her later that day.

And he just never returned because of the tunnel.

>>And they say that day he went back and kissed her a second time for some reason.

This day in 1925 was the maiden voyage that he was the engineer.

Maybe he was feeling something odd about it.

They lived right down this way.

It wasn't like he had to get in his car and drive to work.

>>Do you know many details about actually what happened that day?

>>The tunnel had been closed for a good while because some unsafe conditions.

They said there was a lot of water in that tunnel.

So what they were doing was going in to shore things up so they could start using it again.

Apparently it didn't want to be used again, and it collapsed at the very end.

>>The flannel bar trapped him, so he was not able to move.

Whereas the fireman jumped out, he was stuck right there.

One of the things that was said was his glasses, which he wore glasses, were milk glass when they brought him out.

He died probably instantly.

>>Gary's father was Ralph Mason, the son of conductor Tom Mason, Ralph stood outside the tunnel for days watching for any sign that his father might be alive >>As a child, 11 and a half years old, he was there, and no one worried about him being unsafe.

He wasn't unsafe because so many people were caring about the incident together.

As a whole, the city of Richmond came together to make that happen.

>>In the days that followed, over 75,000 onlookers would show up to watch the effort to rescue Tom and anyone else who was trapped in what had become known as the tunnel of death.

What do you all think should happen with this place?

>>I'd like to see them go into that hill and make that train exposable.

>>You can put a man on the moon, you can certainly expose that train.

And that would be wonderful for Richmond history.

>>The northern entrance is now closed.

It's imprinted with 1926 to commemorate the tunnel tragedy.

Portions of the tunnel have continued to have problems in the years since, and several houses and a wall of a church have been destroyed by sink holes near 25th and Broad Street.

Why do you think it's so important, the history of this?

>>It was a tragedy, tremendous tragedy.

And it was in this day in time, believe it or not, can I say racism?

Can I say racial issues?

Can I say crossing barriers?

That was one of the big things.

There were no barriers at that moment.

There were people.

There were people helping people.

>>It's been almost a hundred years since this tragedy.

There've been ideas of recovering the locomotive out of the collapsed tunnel for historical purposes.

No matter what happens, we must honor and remember the workers and families affected by the collapsed tunnel.

So the next time you come to Church Hill for great food or sights, make sure to visit this piece of hidden history.